


Visibility and Strings (they see and they plan)

by Daemon_By_Night



Series: Timeline Regret [4]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF, mcyt
Genre: Angst, Dreamons, First of all normalize using BadBoyHalo instead of his real name, Gen, Karl Jacobs Needs a Hug, Karl Jacobs is a God, Memory Alteration (implied), Memory Loss, Minor Character Death, Morally Grey Karl Jacobs, POV Alternating, Possession (implied), This series really said "no fluff" am I right?, Time God Karl Jacobs, Time Traveler Ranboo, Villain Karl Jacobs, kinda sorta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29366316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daemon_By_Night/pseuds/Daemon_By_Night
Summary: the ⎓𝙹⚍∷-No. The Three Favorites + One reflect over their time knowing "Karl", and the strings they thought were hallucinations.----------The Four noticed, and now they plan. They plan to free him.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Clay | Dream, Alexis | Quackity & Darryl Noveschosch, Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs, Alexis | Quackity & Ranboo, Clay | Dream & Darryl Noveschosch, Clay | Dream & Karl Jacobs, Clay | Dream & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Darryl Noveschosch & Ranboo, Karl Jacobs & Darryl Noveschosch, Karl Jacobs & Ranboo
Series: Timeline Regret [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2128023
Comments: 3
Kudos: 60





	Visibility and Strings (they see and they plan)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AWholeNewBoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AWholeNewBoi/gifts), [bigmenwinthese](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigmenwinthese/gifts).



> (REMEMBER, THIS IS ABOUT THE RP CHARACTERS IN THE DREAM SMP, NOT THE ACTUAL CONTENT CREATORS. DO NOT HARASS THEM ABOUT THIS STORY. IF THEY EXPRESS THAT THEY ARE UNCOMFORTABLE, I WILL TAKE THIS DOWN)

Dream didn’t know what first tipped him off that something wasn’t quite right with Karl. Maybe it was because on one of the days when the Time God dragged him off (despite all of his protests and pleas), he could have sworn he saw strings tightly wrapped around the God’s neck. He didn’t bring it up though. He was terrified of this God, who toyed with him as though he were a simple puppet. When Dream was on his own, he went over his memory (hallucination?) of the strings and hoped to literally any other God that those strings were controlling Karl.

He didn’t know why he hoped that. But, he had half-forgotten memories of a time when the Time God was much nicer and fun to be around. Sometimes those memories felt more like hallucinations when he compared the one in his memory to the one who made him the villain of his own damn SMP. Honestly, it was a low blow. He had been so excited when he made the DreamSMP and brought his friends on, but then the God got bored of that, and forced Dream to become the Villain. He always felt like he was outside of his body when he took people’s lives and items away from them, and couldn’t help but sob when he began to drive his friends away from him.

Dream would often curse his younger self for making the deal with the Time God his town had spoken so reverently of. Why would he agree to be dragged around Time itself to help the “world be righted”? It seemed that agreeing to the deal was the cause of his problems, and the countless personality rewrites for every new story that “Karl” came up with would bleed into what he believed was the original one. The one that made Dream… Dream. He vaguely remembered the “Favorites” the Time God had talked about, and who they were. He knew he was one, and then… Bad? Which was strange, because why would someone so sweet and ( ~~no that wasn’t right, was it? Stupid Brain-- remember, remember!~~ ). Ranboo was another, wasn’t he? The one Karl proclaimed as his successor. The final Favorite… Dream didn’t know. He didn’t know. Who was the fourth Favorite? ~~(He doubted it was important.)~~ He supposed though, he should meet with the two he knew for a fact were Favorite’s and see if any of them also had a hallucination ~~(memory)~~ of a kinder Karl and strings around his neck.

XxxxX

Bad had moments where he slipped into a confusing persona. Sure, he still didn’t swear (thank goodness for that, he still hated swears no matter what happened.), but there was something about him that set his friends on edge. He became cold and calculating. He thrived off of the chaos of war. This… he remembered from the Manburg vs Pogtopia war, where he had made an entire plan to keep the war going- to keep it going to purely benefit the Badlands. That wasn’t something he cared about! He cared for Skeppy, the Egg ~~(that thing was disgusting, why was he pretending to like it?)~~ , and his friends. No need for Chaos, and really no need for war. Especially war brought on by children ( ~~he ignores the part of his brain that states that he used to do that. He used to send children to war with hardly a thought. That wasn’t true. He’d remember if it was!)~~

Bad hated that he would scare his friends with that “act” of his. But now, after seeing Karl again (he stopped by the badlands to pick something up), he had been having…. well, he supposed he could call them Nightmares. Nightmares of a time where he was a ruler of a village that feared him, where he was known not as the kind demon, but the raging one, the one that ruled with an iron fist until he met the god his town worshipped. The Time God; who… was Karl? Yeah. It was Karl. Although, the more he watched his Nightmares, the more he noticed something wrong. He, as a spectator, would notice wire thin, lime green strings around Karls neck. Even back then, when Karl was smiling and grim and sometimes funny, the strings were there. 

When he had become a Favorite, that was when the kindhearted Karl that Bad knew seemed to fade away. He was confused, because that Bad, the merciless leader also seemed to be afraid of Karl. The Karl who smiled and laughed at “Bad” even as he threatened to kill him was gone, a sadistic imposter (he hoped, god he hoped) in his place. He saw times when the Time God grabbed Bad ~~(and was that Dream? It must be, nobody else had that porcelain smiley mask.)~~ and threw the both of them into roles that didnt even fit them. He became a steward, a Mayor, and then… one time he had a Nightmare where he was seeing through the eyes of Nightmare-Bad.

It started out simple, like normal as these always did, with Bad seeing the wire thin strings around Karls throat, arms, torso and legs before they disappeared, and Karl grabbing all of the Favorites (in one of his dreams Nightmare-Bad had been introduced to Ranboo, who was apparently Karls successor to be the fifth time god. Which was strange, but nothing had been said about it, so it was probably a ‘common’ occurrence. He also vaguely remembered seeing someone that looked like Quackity for a split second) and throwing them into a portal that had the same design as Karls sweater. 

The four had been assigned roles, Karl actually joining in for once, playing as a wandering merchant. He had seen Dream become a barkeep, Ranboo become a fisherman, the Quackity look-A-Like become a beggar, and for Bad? It had been a shock to see Nightmare-Bad become like him. The swear hating, muffin making person that he was. He… didn't know how to feel, watching this Nightmare (he wasn't sure if it was a nightmare anymore. Not after tonight) version of himself act like, well, Him. It was strange, watching the story through Nightmare-Bad’s eyes, going through the motions before it ended. When the story ended was when it all went to shit though. Everyone had gotten out of “character” except for “him”. The story had been collapsing in on itself due to an experimental tug on one of the strings that surrounded Karl. When Bad had gone through, it had been as the character Karl made him play. 

Bad had woke up after that in a cold sweat. Was he… just some character in a story that overtook the “real” BadBoyHalo? What did that mean for him? Who was he, if not some figment of… not-Karls imagination that got free from the story he was supposed to die in? It felt like some weird paradox, the more me thought about it, and the more worried he got. Bad knew he should probably talk to the others- specifically the other Favorites that he “knew”. Dream and Ranboo… although he swore there was another one. 


End file.
